Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Brett Stone on November 8, 2011 at 5:09pm

Bob

 

First of all, my condolences regarding the situation with your neice. While I have never been in the situation you find yourself, I have had extensive involvement in relation to these types of things. The fight to get drugs off of our streets needs to be taken up by every person - the damage they do is beyond belief.

I would be very interested in hearing your sons view after he returns. I have had lengthy discussion with my cousin who fought in both Gulf Wars - he was in no doubt about what he was fighting against and what he was fighting for. The thing that has become clear to me in talking with these people is that are seeing the war for all that it is about. As you say, they are the ones being shot at. They see what needs to be addressed - and they address it. The engineers bring water and power. The medics bring medical care - and the grunts protect them all.

What threatens us? Directly, the drug trade. How many more like your neice have been prevented from sticking a needle in their arm because of the drugs that have been intercepted? We can never know the answer - but how many would make the process worthwhile?

Indirectly, evil (for want of a better term) is pervasive. When these religios/political regimes gain increasing power, we all feel the impact. When hardliners are in power in the middle east, hardliners here feel that they gain legitimacy.

Just for a moment track the rise and fall of terrorist activity in the last 30 years. Whenever the world rallied against regimes that supported terrorism, it waned. Whenever we backed off and became more isolationist, it increased. How many successful terrorist attacks have we seen in the last handful of years? Why did Bali occur? London? Madrid?

Was it because coalition countries were 'invading' the enemy? Or was it because the enemy could sense dissent in the ranks, and felt that an attack would split the coalition? In one of those examples it had that exact effect.

The same applies to the drug trade - it prospers because it is allowed to do so.  Because our laws - like those in the US - tend to protect the guilty rather than the innocent.

I recently read a book about how to tackly the international drug trade - can't recall the name but it will come to me. From that it became patently clear that our inability to tackle this is a prodict of our own unwillingness to do so. The book postulated that it would be entirely possible to destroy the lion share of the drug trade within a year. But, it would mean setting people up; it would mean manipulating the laws of various countries - and most importantly, it would mean identifying drug traffickers as terrorists (as this is where a great deal of there income is derived).

Why don't we do it? We don't have the stomache for it.

Alan, the story you related is not all that different. But to be frank, I don't think we have ever fought a war where we knew who the enemy was. Certainly not in Vietnam; WW 1 and WW2 may have been a little more clear cut, but not always so. In every war we have utilised subversive actions to assist in bringing about the right result.

Throughout the Cold War both sides spent millions trying to buy people to work for them.

In addition, our enemies have always had a large number of true believers in their ranks - as we have in ours. Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot - you name the despot and they had committed followers. Even with all of their support, they grew in stength not just because of the size of their following, but also because of the extent of our complacency. Think Hitler and Chamberlain.

Finally, I refuse to believe that we should only set out to fight those battles we deem to be winnable. Were that to be the case, we should all just curl up into a little ball and die now.

Did anybody really think that when the convoy arrived in Canberra that Gillard would curl up her toes and change her mind? That battle was never going to be won, yet we fought. Why? Why bother - we couldn't win - and may not ever?

Clearly we are never going to stop all drugs from getting into the country and into the hands of our children. Another unwinnable war. Lets stop fighting. Lets just make sure my own kids are safe, because that is all that is important.

Sounds extreme? See I have a very simplistic view of our responsibility to others. We stand up to bullies. We stand up to criminals. We help the weak. We feed and clothe children. We help all who need help.

This is how we choose to lead our lives. Most of us are not prepared to do much at all to help others - whether they be in out own back yard, or on the other side of the world.

That to me is the saddest thing of all.

Finally, Alan, yes I have been quiet for a long time. Family dramas, a fast growing business and two eye operations have been a bit distracting. Hopefully I will be able to devote a bit more attention to this site now.

Below is a current favourite song that helps express my views...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMuM_YAlKr8&feature=related

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Permalink Reply by Martin Essenberg on November 9, 2011 at 6:09pm

Hmm- do I care whether you appreciate me?

No I can't help myself pointing out how crooked the LNP is. John Howard was a member of the Fraser Government that supported the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. He supported the various agreements recognising the Indonesian invasion, and its territorial borders etc.

I damn the Howard action with faint praise because our intervention was 24 years in coming. Yet when the US wants us to jump into their unwinnable wars we jump right in. Australia doesn't lack morality really- just lacks a spine.

alan mikkelsen said:

.....

I would sincerely like to have included you in that note of appreciation Martin, but sadly, you just can't help yourself, can you? Why throw in ".... Finally the Howard government did about the only thing I have ever agreed with and supported the UN in making the Indonesians have a referendum on freedom of East Timor".

.......but why at all qualify the fact that the Howard government indeed helped the resolution of a mighty wrong, if you can't find anything worthwhile to say?

.

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Permalink Reply by Bob Stewart on November 9, 2011 at 7:04pm

That is the whole issue Tony and Martin.

Afghani's running away spending thousands to smugglers says a great deal about them. None of them are worth the death of any of our "mentoring task force" that is achieving so little day by day. Even that will disappear when they leave.

But I feel there is a larger dimension. Theirs is a strange way of life and death. We do not kill our sisters or daughters for "family honor" when they run away from a forced relationship after having been exchanged for gold. Nor do we blow up ourselves and those we don't like believing we will dwell in Paradise with the virgins forever for having done so

We do not stand by and watch a young woman set herself alight after the shame of being scolded in public by her husbands relatives. Nor do we cut off her nose and ears if another man looks at her without the burgha or forbid her on the street without her brother or close male relative or as punishment for running away ( NY Times Oct 2010)

Are  the fit men in the asylum stream running away from that life Mr. Smith?

.....or bringing it with them.

Timorese slaughtered? The journalists covering the events were executed.

Tony Howard said:

 I have to agree with Martin.. Timor was an absolute disgrace. I remember at the time I couldn't believe that we sat on our hands and let the Timorese be slaughtered. I agree that all members of the serving parliament at the time, on both sides,  are culpable and accountable for our lack of action.That's history now, yet here we are again with both sides mouthing platitudes while our serving armed forces are being killed and wounded by the very people they are training. All this ,and at the same time we as a nation welcome with open arms and generous conditions "refugees" including young fit men who have fled the war zone..apparently they don't think the place is worth fighting for. I repeat get our people out of that sewer.

Martin Essenberg said:

  John Howard was a member of the Fraser Government that supported the Indonesian invasion of East Timor.

.

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Permalink Reply by Martin Essenberg on November 10, 2011 at 7:22pm

Only 4 journos killed compared to 200,000 E Timorese. Still it shows the level of Aust Government support in that starting with Whitlam, then Fraser etc the Aust Government avoiding addressing the issue that Indonesian troops had knowningly killed 4 Australians.

 

So how can we say Australia is acting for moral reasons in Afghanistan or Iraq when they have rarely done so before?

Bob Stewart said:

 

Timorese slaughtered? The journalists covering the events were executed.

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Permalink Reply by Bob Stewart on November 10, 2011 at 9:04pm

Martin,

I made no mention of morality political or otherwise. It is a tangled web to compare the circumstances of 200,000 Tmorese and 4 Journalists and relate it to what Whitlam or Frazer did or didn't do. There is a subtle difference to the use of the word "slaughter, murder,assassinate or kill" While the effect is the same it is the manner of it being done that bears clarity on reflection.

In my recall on the death of all the inmates, the whole 1671, at the Nazi concentration camp liberated in the path of Patton's Third Army and destruction of the bodies by fire and explosives to remove any witness to the atrocities committed by the SS in the gas chambers and ovens as they themselves escaped, (Source: Nuremberg War Crimes Trial Transcripts) I see clearly the parallel of method to the "execution" of the journalists to destroy the witness in Timor. It is common enough to hide the facts but impossible to change them. Is the figure of 200,000 authenticated somewhere Martin?

Martin Essenberg said:

Only 4 journos killed compared to 200,000 E Timorese. Still it shows the level of Aust Government support in that starting with Whitlam, then Fraser etc the Aust Government avoiding addressing the issue that Indonesian troops had knowningly killed 4 Australians.

 

So how can we say Australia is acting for moral reasons in Afghanistan or Iraq when they have rarely done so before?

Bob Stewart said:

 

Timorese slaughtered? The journalists covering the events were executed.

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Permalink Reply by Ian Davies on February 12, 2012 at 10:39am

J.G was dribbling on the news again last night.

Truth, lies and Afghanistan

How military leaders have let us down

BY LT. COL. DANIEL L. DAVIS

I spent last year in Afghanistan, visiting and talking with U.S. troops and their Afghan partners. My duties with the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force took me into every significant area where our soldiers engage the enemy. Over the course of 12 months, I covered more than 9,000 miles and talked, traveled and patrolled with troops in Kandahar, Kunar, Ghazni, Khost, Paktika, Kunduz, Balkh, Nangarhar and other provinces.

What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.

Entering this deployment, I was sincerely hoping to learn that the claims were true: that conditions in Afghanistan were improving, that the local government and military were progressing toward self-sufficiency. I did not need to witness dramatic improvements to be reassured, but merely hoped to see evidence of positive trends, to see companies or battalions produce even minimal but sustainable progress.

Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.

My arrival in country in late 2010 marked the start of my fourth combat deployment, ................

Link to complete article: HERE

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Permalink Reply by Martin Essenberg on February 12, 2012 at 8:23pm

I heard the lies being told during the Vietnam war. 2 years after de-escalation South Vietnam fell.

The same lies have been told for the last 10 years about Afghanistan and Iraq. I expect the result will be the same. Its a bit more complicated in Iraq as the majority Shia are likely to fight the minority Sunni and Iran and other countries might get involved.

My father, who fought with the Dutch army in Indonesia, protested against the Vietnam war. I and 500,000 others protested against the Iraq war. But John Howard said that "the mob hasn't made up their minds" and we entered these futile wars anyway.

 

So what will the West have achieved after the loss/injury of men and expenditure of national treasure?

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Permalink Reply by Bob Stewart on February 29, 2012 at 6:46am

Bro' Ian,

It is well that I live alone lest I show my sensitivity to events that keep coming back after Korea 51-52. but I thank you for recalling my comment that we should not be there. I have long felt that foreign intervention is akin to a man trying to separate two  dogs or two women who are fighting one another. They would then both turn on him.

And so I see it for Afghanistan. This cluster of feudal warlords deriving much, if not most, of wealth from the culture and traffic of opium and its derivative heroin. 

 Ecstasy tabs laced with brown heroin traced to Afghanistan can  be bought in Adelaide for $10 and drug labs for amphetamine are being dismantled at the rate of one a month these past 12 months. The life of a policewoman was risked in a sting to trap a drug dealer who was only fined with confiscation of money and drugs gathered up in the raid.

I lived and worked at agricultural projects in Libya at El Marj. Wadi Beb, Sirir and Kufra 73 and 74 and traveled with some of my Sudani staff by road to Khartoum to visit a statue of a distant relative at the University. Qaddafi strict laws against drugs did not reach as far as these places. 

 I well understood Kipling,"It is not wise for the Christian white to hassle the Eastern brown. The Chistian riles, the Eastern smiles. It weareth the Christian down. The end in sight, is a tombstone white, with the name of the late deceased. The epitaph drear,"A Fool Lies Here Who Tried to Hassle the East."

 

Ian Macrae Yeates said:

Hi Bob,

I posted part 1 of the interview between Ben Roberts-Smith and Mike Willisee in 'Our Political Foundations' and now part 11 here:

 

Cheers,

Ian

http://au.news.yahoo.com/sunday-night/video/watch/28428825/corporal...

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Permalink Reply by Martin Essenberg on February 29, 2012 at 9:29am

Here is a video of an event where there was no doubt that we were the victims and we were good guys.

Its sad that since that time we have started the wars and become the bad guys

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=vcnH_kF1zXc&feature=player...

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Permalink Reply by Ruth Bonnett on February 29, 2012 at 12:43pm

Oh, Beverley THANK YOU.  I will vote.  I find this completely disgusting.  I will be letting my views be known.

They are on the side of the Taliban, not on the side of democratic freedom, sacrifice and glory.

Damn them all.

Grrrr.

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Permalink Reply by Bob Stewart on March 1, 2012 at 5:35am

My eldest son Neil who until a month ago worked in Kabul sent this. It continues the sad circumstances published in NY Times Oct 2010

Why Sadat Set Herself on Fire (From the Huffington Post)

Posted: 02/22/2012 4:45 pm

A few days ago, in the back of a cab in Kabul Afghanistan, I met Sadat. She couldn't say a word. This girl, 15 years old, was wrapped head to toe in bandages, with only her blistered, scorched face visible. Who was responsible for her injuries?

Given that she poured the oil from two lamps onto herself, and willingly lit the match that engulfed her body in flames, one could argue she was the responsible party.

But I think we all know that every attempted suicide has a deep back story, featuring many villains for every victim claimed. In Afghanistan, the layers that lead to so many girls' desperate, shattered choice to self-immolate are particularly complex.

But before we look at the reasons, let's look at the method at least 86 girls this year, according to the doctor I spoke with, have chosen. Why fire? Why burn yourself to death? Why is this the fashionable suicide method in Herat, and other regions of Afghanistan? What happened to the ol' knife to the wrist, the poison, the noose, the jumping down a well? Clearly these girls aren't after simple annihilation.

And that's just it. These girls aren't after simple annihilation. They don't want to die. They want to make an impact. They want to be what girls the world over want to be; excited, studious, loving, in friendships, making homes, having a life, having a place in the world. Many of these girls go to school -- Sadat was in 9th grade -- but even those who don't go to school intrinsically know they should have a place in the world.

Then suddenly, they get their period, are considered eligible for marriage, pulled out of school, sold or exchanged to a man and his family, and those whose birth canals are developed enough for childbirth are wives and mothers. (Many physically aren't ready for childbirth, though they menstruate; close to 30% of girls married under age 16 in Afghanistan die giving birth, according to UNIFEM Baseline Stats, many due to lack of physical development.)

Calling these girls "wives" is a bit of a stretch. In other parts of the world husbands and wives are something like partners. In neighboring Iran, where many Herat families were once refugees, "hamsar," or "co-head," is a word commonly thrown around for "spouse" -- this is a beautiful word, both practically and poetically significant, and found in Dari (a main Afghan language) as well.

But Sadat was no hamsar. She was married to a man twice her age, and her life was reduced to serving him and her in-laws during the day. Of course, she served him at night. I imagine for many it feels like nightly rape. Small misdemeanors, speaking up, led to beating, and torture. Sadat was repeatedly forced back into her subjugated role with the same tactics interrogators use to break the spirit of detainees -- for example, Sadat's husband pulled out her fingernails.

But Sadat's spirit didn't break. She went for help. She went to the police, she went to the chief prosecutor's office, she went to an advocacy group to ask for justice, a divorce. No one listened. They saw her bruises, but threatened by gun-wielding in-laws and a deeply embedded devaluation of females, she was turned away, even by other women. She had no economic independence. Islam is supposed to ensure a woman always has money, and the Prophet's first wife (pbuh) was a businesswoman who controlled purse strings -- but it's interesting which pieces of Islam are often forgotten and which hijacked and mutilated.

Still, Sadat tried to run away. She got in a taxi and the taxi took her straight to the police, who sent her back to her husband. So what did Sadat do? She didn't decide to die, she decided to speak up. Speaking up might mean death anyway. Might as well go out with a bang. She poured kerosene from two lamps over herself, this 15 yr old wife--now two months pregnant though she didn't know -- and set herself on fire. And least in death she would have a vivid presence.

86 other girls have done the same in Herat province this year. Most have died grisly deaths, and still they do it. One after another.

If suicide attempts are usually a cry for help, then these recurring acts of self-immolation should be considered roars that should shake a nation. We should be hearing these screams all the way across the world, even, and we -- Afghans, neighbors, strangers -- should respond as any human should to another human's emergency.

In the case of Sadat, the emergency response has been present. Her mother called the Afghanistan Human Rights Organization, who began advocating for her intensely, led by Chairman Lal Gul. Afghanistan's Ministry of Health was notified, media brought to the scene. Sadat's husband was arrested. The justice system that failed Sadat is under scrutiny. The Minister of Health, Dr. Soraya Dalil, immediately began working with the Turkish Embassy to get Sadat airlifted to care. The Turkish Ambassador to Afghanistan, Ambassador Uzturk, and his team, pushed hard to facilitate the emergency response in a timely manner. Shriner's Hospital, in Boston, offered their facilities as well. Individuals in Afghanistan and the United States came together to donate -- rallying with little warning through Facebook and emails. Hundreds contributed. A U.S.-based nonprofit, Child Foundation, offered to sponsor this effort, as well as reach out to their donor base.

www.childfoundation.org/OurPrograms/SadatsStory/tabid/1018/Default....

www.gofundme.com/Save-Sadat

Or email payvandseyedali@gmail.com for Afghanistan domestic donations
Sadat may not die. I hope the parties involved successfully protect her precious life. And while Turkish doctors are saving her life, let us all -- Afghans, neighbors, strangers -- take a moment to hear the voices of many other girls who do die in flames, and let us think about how to answer them.

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